The best bachelor party of all-time...

For a little background, my buddy “Bob” is getting married this summer. He used to live in Boston, but moved to “New Mexico” this past summer to be with his new fiancé that he met on a trip to “Cancun” a little over 2 years ago. She was not real keen on our group of friends throwing a bachelor party… apparently she doesn’t trust him partying with his friends (which includes me!). “Bob” is about as trustworthy as one gets, so I can’t say I understand her stance?!?!? Needless to say that when she found out about this surprise bachelor party she was very upset with him, us, everyone… although I can’t say I understand why?? I’ll let you be the judge… its not like we were a bunch of little Amy Winehouse’s that stumbled on a mystery package that contained 3 kilos of Columbian Bam-Bam!

Operation surprise bachelor party was put into full effect on St. Patty’s Day weekend in the great city of Chicago. “Bob” arrived in Chi-town on Friday afternoon. The rest of us were already there having flown in earlier that morning. The bachelor thought he was in for a quiet weekend with the best man, not knowing that we were waiting to surprise him… pretty cool us I must say! The best man picked him up at the airport and drove him to where we had been the past couple hours enjoying some food and beverages at Chucky Cheese. We even got some of the girls working at Chucky Cheese to gather around the door when he walked in to help us welcome him. Who knew the wings and beer were so aesthetically pleasing at Chucky Cheese?!?

Friday night was truly a treat and likely a staple of all real bachelor parties. We ordered room service for dinner. When the food arrived it was truly majestic. The salads were so fresh it was breathe-taking. The milk shakes were rich and delicious. How great was it is to enjoy such a healthy dinner together as great friends? Then we took it up a notch and decided to go around the table, holding hands, sharing our fears and dreams. What was revealed was a bonding session unparalleled in any other bachelor party I’ve attended. To be able to connect with your friends on that level in this type of setting was special. Then we called it an early night and hit the hay around 11pm to make sure we got our full 8 hours of sleep. Rumor has it that the best man and the groom cried themselves to sleep.

Saturday was the big St. Patty’s Day celebration so we got an early start and headed out of the hotel around noon time. There were tons of very cool Irish celebrations at the bars in downtown Chicago, but we passed on that to go to a local bakery and spend the afternoon making cupcakes and croissants that were going to be given to the needy at a local homeless shelter. The gift of giving really is the best gift of all!! At night we decided to put on our bachelor party tee shirts we had printed up for the event. The bachelor even had a special tee with a checklist on it. The checklist was a series of activities that he was required to complete before nights end. We were so proud that he was able to get all 10 done. Who would have thought that “Bob” would be able to get a girl to say hi to him, get a girl to wink at him, get the bar owner to let him take out the trash, get the security team to let him collect the cash at the door free of charge, and most of all get the bar owner to let him clean up the bathroom before leaving to go back to the hotel that night? I mean, we almost talked to some girls but then we wet ourselves and decided to leave before any noticed. "If peeing your pants is cool, call me Miles Davis!" Since we had a little extra time on our hands after leaving the bar we headed over to the local strip club. Yup, you guessed it… we stood outside and picketed the establishment. No one is going to subject themselves to that kind of degrading behavior on our watch!!

In summary, it was a wild and raucous weekend in Chi-town that I will always remember… I just wish that she wasn’t so mad at us doing this great thing for our dear friend that now lives across the country where we don’t get to see him very often!

TMI

I’m sure by now 80% of people on the internet have facebook pages. I’m also quite positive you are familiar with “twitter”, which in facebook land is your status update. I have an issue with the madness of these facebook updates. There are three clear issues with this newfound sensation. They are frequency, content, and grammar.

Frequency. I know times are tough out there. Unemployment is a big issue and companies across our ailing country are tightening the old belt quite a bit. Most staffs or divisions of workers are stretched pretty thin these days leaving us all to do the work of multiple people. Somehow despite that, I see people putting 5-10 updates per day. Where does one find the time to update the rest of the facebook world as to what they are doing all day long?? Better yet, why would someone want the world to know what they are up to at all times in the day? I am baffled by this! I kind of enjoy my privacy. I know what you are going to say… Jeff you have a freakin’ blog, privacy what? My response is that is quite different than alerting the entire world as to my whereabouts or thoughts all day long. It’s pretty simple to see. I even think a complete idiot like Britney Spears (lights are on, but no one is home) could see my point here. Are they looking for attention? Maybe they weren’t hugged enough as a child and this is their way of feeling loved? Are they fishing for a response… possibly compliments? I don’t get it. Alerting the world you are going out for the night and you’re not coming back until the morning sounds to me a lot like, “Hey, come rob my place. No chance of anyone being there to catch you”! Good thing George W Bush didn’t use twitter or we would have seen updates like, “George is giving the ok to bomb cave xyz at 1800 hours”. The troops on the ground would have gone to the bombed caves and found nothing but a note reading, “George W…LOL”.

Content. I see updates that I can’t fathom wanting to share with people. I mean if you feel the need to share with us, I would encourage you to think about what you are posting before you hit update. Some things should be personal…I have seen facebook updates like “Tom is going to bed” or even “Grace is reading a book.”. What’s next?? Am I going to start seeing crap like “Justin is in the bathroom sitting on the toilet”?? I guess that’s better than the other extreme. I’ve seen this update, “XYZ loves to date losers… he is cheating on me, again!” and I’ve even seen one that said, “XYZ is having bad day… just got back from the hospital. Mike is ok, the stab wounds didn’t cause any serious damage.” Really? You thought that was something that should be posted for everyone to see? Where is the line people? At this point there is no line! That is so far past the line that when you look back, the line is now a dot : )

Grammar. I have a request for all the facebook update people. If you are going to let me know what you are doing all day long, and sometimes with way too much detail… could you at least use good grammar. Why did I see an update that read, “Jess is dinner with the girls”? Or maybe you’d prefer “Colleen is 2 bottles of wine”?? How hard would it be to put “Jess is out for dinner with the girls”? Unless of course Jess has some weird friends I don’t know about that are straight out of Silence of the Lambs… and Jess really is dinner, lol. If that’s the case I stand corrected and I appreciate the update because I’m certainly never going to dinner with your friends moving forward!! Maybe I was wrong and these updates are useful??

A bit overpriced considering we are in a recession?

So, I was doing some random surfing on the internet and come across an article from a few months ago. How I am just hearing about this now is beyond me? I don’t know if you are familiar with a girl named Natalie Dylan? She is a 22 year old college student. Like most people she naturally has student loans. College is mighty expensive these days… even at Sacramento State College. Some kids like to get jobs to help cover expenses. Usually it is along the lines of a Dunkin' Donuts counter person. Some might say this young lady is thinking outside the box… or is she? She has never had sex before and is offering up her virginity for a large some of money, EBay style!! This is quite creative and almost equally as disturbing.

http://www.scandalist.com/2008-10-13/exclusive-girl-selling-her-virginity-will-get-up-to-38-million/

This girl is clearly one of a kind. I’m just not sure if that’s such a good thing here. I’ve seen pictures of her and she isn’t bad looking. She is definitely not my type. Apparently I am quite picky?!? She has a normal face and has what appears to be a nice curvy figure. I’m more into thinner and fit figured girls, so I defer to my co-workers and they all say they'd be interested. I think the average score in the office is roughly a “7” for frame of reference. You might be asking what such a girl could demand on the open market?? There are rumors that have the highest bids somewhere between $1 million and $3.8 million dollars! That is insanity if you ask me, but since no one is… let’s dig a little deeper. Let’s think about what else $3.8 million can buy you these days. It can get you three Bugatti Veyrons (listed at $1,192,057). This is by far the most expensive street legal car available on the market today. It is the fastest accelerating car reaching 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. It claims to be the fastest car with a top speed of 253 mph+. It can also buy you a 6 bedroom, 8 bathroom, 8500 sq ft penthouse in downtown Boston. For point of reference I live in a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 500 sq ft apartment in the Boston’s Back Bay. I’m not sure what someone would even need 8 bathrooms for, but I have some ideas of my own (for another time). You could even buy front row, courtside season tickets for the Lakers for you and 35 of your closest friends. You would still have money for parking and beer too!

Now that we understand the scope of the money being talked about, you have to question whether this is even legal. Not that I have experience with hookers, but this sounds a lot like prostitution! A girl selling sex with her for money… hmmmm? Upon further investigation I discovered that she approached Dennis Hof, the owner of the world famous brothel “The Bunny Ranch” in Nevada. Apparently there is no basis for the federal government to stop the so-called auction. It's a First Amendment issue. You can advertise goods or services that are illegal where they're advertised but legal where they're performed. She has agreed to give the owner of the “Bunny Ranch” half of the total money from the winning bidder. Talk about a winning lottery ticket falling into your lap, lol.

Assuming she finds her chosen guy to do the deed… let’s look at the economics of the actual act. She is a virgin, which inherently comes with certain circumstances that are unavoidable. I don’t think you need me to get all “Anatomy” on you with in depth details, so we will assume you are familiar with the process. Given that information I think we can safely assume it will not exactly be a super lengthy session, especially when you consider who the likely winner is. I mean, chances are this guy is atleast 40 years old... if not in his 50s. A guy with too much money to know what to do with that has the personality of a wall. Who else would bid on such a thing... a first rate D-bag! Based on my knowledge of people like this we are safe in assuming he is no ladies man and his performance is going to be brief and pretty suspect at best!!! If this was the Olympics we would probably label this event as the 200 meter dash… I would have chosen 100m, but for this kind of money I think this guy is going to go great lengths to get his money’s worth (no pun intended) even if he isn't equipped with the tools to make it a marathon!! If we use $3.8 million as our benchmark and estimate the actual act lasting 15 minutes (which is generous), this guy is going to be spending over $250,000 per minute… or $4000 per second... or roughly $6000 per hip thrust ; ) Talk about a Stimulus Package!!

I think the whole thing is just pretty creepy. I think she can be commended for being creative, but at what cost? She is just ridiculous... and not in the good way! As for the guy that will eventually win this “auction”, you are equally as creepy. Assuming you know that and are comfortable with it, might I make a suggestion… you should video tape the experience, copyright it, and sell the DVD on the open market. Given how sad society can be at times, you stand a pretty good chance of recouping all the money you spent on sleeping with this girl in DVD sales… heck, you might even turn a profit!

Does your job speak to you intelligence level?

I think it’s fair to say a majority of people would say that (fair or unfair) they tend to judge people’s intelligence around their occupation. Even if it’s not a conscious decision, most people pre-determine a person’s likely intelligence level based on what they do for a living. All you have to do is go to a bar in NYC for Happy Hour if you don’t believe me. When I was living in Manhattan we had a weekly Happy Hour that rotated around the city. This is a breading ground for men and women looking to meet new people… possibly that special someone… possibly that special someone for a night! More often than not the men are touting jobs much better and higher up the ladder than they actually have in reality. There can only be two reasons for that. They want to show the women their supreme intelligence and imply their robust money making power.

If you are still doubting my original thought just take the test. If you saw someone wearing a suit coming out of a building in Boston’s financial district at 6pm and you saw another person coming out of McDonald’s with their McD’s uniform on… be honest, you look at them both and automatically assume the person in the suit coming out of an office building is much smarter. I would like to challenge this thought. I would like to say that can be the correct assumption more than not, but there are plenty of instances where it is not the truth! Sometimes circumstance we are not aware of can lead to a smart person with a lesser job than we would have guessed. The flip side is also true where someone with a great job may have gotten to that position because of a family member or some other social connection that has no direct relation to their intelligence.

It was back in the year 2001 and it was my first trip to a wonderful place called Las Vegas. I went with a group of 7 other guys I was friends with at the time. We were staying at the Flamingo, which was located in the center of The Strip. I can remember the first time we rode down The Strip. The excitement was along the lines of waking up Christmas morning when you were 8 years old. I had never seen anything so wild before. I couldn’t wait to check into the hotel, throw my stuff in the room, and get outside to check everything out. We did some gambling in a few casinos. We went out to the pool to check out the scene and talent. We scouted out some food spots we wanted to hit later in the trip. Heck, I think we even walked into the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum at The Venetian. Soon the day turned to night and The Strip exploded into sea of lights. The young ladies were out looking their very best. The skirts and dresses were shorter than K-Fed’s rap career. There were endless lines of creepy dudes making snapping noises with business cards to escort services on every corner. More over, the energy on The Strip was incredible. The mood was perfect to party and we were more than willing to join that mood. I had heard a number of stories about Vegas before being there, but hardly believed them. I heard it was a place where everyone had fun. People were friendly, looking to party and some were hoping to get rich and win their fortunes at the slots, blackjack, craps, or your table game of choice.

The guys and I had done some “pre-gaming” in the room thanks to a bottle of Captain Morgan and everyone’s favorite friend to love then hate, Jagermeister. The night started off at the Bellagio. We went to our favorite spot, Light. It is now called Bank, but it is one of the most fun bar/clubs I’ve ever been to. Light was like the Mecca of Vegas clubs for us. We had drinks and did some dancing. We talked to some groups of girls and had an all around fantastic time. After being there from 10pm-12:30am we decided to leave. I know what you are thinking… rookies. You’re 100% right, we left just when it was going to really get good. Hey, we were 22 years old and had never been to Vegas before. Anyways, we were walking up The Strip to go to another bar. As we were walking there were 2 girls I noticed across the way. They were smokin’ hot. A friend of mine needed to hit an ATM, so we needed to cross the street. I was more than willing to get a closer look at these two beauties. As we were waiting, a friend and I started chatting with the girls. They were very friendly and started to walk with our group when we started to head towards our next destination. I don’t know what I was saying, but they were loving every word out of my mouth like a fat kid loves cake. It was great. We got to the bar and I asked them where they where headed (hoping to meet up with them later on). They told me they were headed wherever I was going. Wow, this was incredible. Did I find the exact right amount of alcohol to consume to get me in the perfect zone with the ladies? I felt like Michael Jordan. Everything I threw up at the hoop was nothing but net! We went over to the bar area and this one girl with a cherry tattoo on her back left shoulder bought me a drink. Could things get better? Now they are buying me drinks. People were right about Vegas… this place rules!! We were chatting and I realized my friends were no longer in sight, but honestly I didn’t care. I was like a pitcher on the mound in the 9th inning with a no-hitter. I was straight up dealing. Everything was a strike. I couldn’t miss! I was on the kind of roll you dream of. Then the girl with the cherry asked me if I wanted to go up to her room. I thought, “you have to be kidding me?” I didn’t know what to say. My friends are never going to believe this. It felt like I was Brad Pitt going to a speed dating event with women dying for a decent man. I paused because I didn’t know what to say. I was not the “player” type so this was sort of out of my wheel house. I had to think about this for a second. The theme to Jeopardy was playing in my head for those few seconds of silence. Before I could figure out what to say she spoke again, “only $500 for 2 hours”. Suddenly I got that feeling like at the end of Fight Club when Ed Norton comes to the realization that Brad Pitt was merely a figment of his imagination and he was actually the one screwing Marla, the founder of Fight Club, and the leader behind Project Mahem. All I could hear in my head was the voice of the flight attendant on the trip out to Vegas saying, “please put your tray table and seat in the upright in the locked position… we are about to experience some major turbulence”. It was like my entire world was rocked at its foundation. I definitely gave her the deer in headlights look. I had never seen a hooker before, nevermind been propositioned by one in person. To me hookers were like Big Foot or the Lochness monster... not real, just creatures made up by people with vivid imaginations. I quickly told her no thanks and asked if she was a hooker… even though I already knew. She said, “of course cutie.” I expressed my disappointment and confirmed to her that I was not interested. She told me to hold on a second and asked me, “Do you gamble?” I said yes. She then said, “Well think of it this way… you are probably going to sit down at the black jack table with a few hundred dollars. You are probably going to lose that money and its likely going to happen in half an hour. What will you be left with then? Nothing! Or you could take that money, bring it upstairs, and I’ll show you the night of your life and give you an experience you’ll never forget… certainly better than losing in the casino for 30 minutes!” She had an excellent point. That was a well thought out argument. One might say a well crafted sales pitch. She could tell I was a smart, logical kind of person and used a persuasive argument that catered to my type of thought and reasoning. This girl was a smart cookie. I still told her that I don’t pay for sex and I’m not interested. Then instead of walking off, she actually started to negotiate. The price went from $500 to $300 and she was willing to throw in her friend. Now the offer was these two hot girls for $300 for the entire night. She knew her stuff. She knew the ABCs of sales… Always Be Closing! Naturally I told her no again and explained that just wasn’t something I’d ever be interested in. Ok, maybe I thought about it for 5 seconds, but eventually I decided that wasn’t something I would feel comfortable doing. She was smart enough to realize I wasn’t bull-shitting her and she let me go. I asked the bartender for my tab as I wanted to close it out and find my friends. As I was signing my tab, I noticed they she moved on to another guy 8 feet to me left at the bar. This guy was nothing like me. He was bigger, out of shape, not dressed well and likely in his 30s. I listened in to their conversation as I signed my tab. She took a whole different approach with him. It was amazing to listen to their conversation. She had him hooked. He was in and ready to go to her hotel room. He asked for his tab. He wanted to get out of there. It was “GO” time for him. As I was about to get up, walk away and find my friends I felt someone walk by in a hurry and brush my shoulder. This person meant business. It was a woman in her early 30s. I looked over at this guy and the hooker and I see this women standing behind him out of his sight line. She yells out, “Henry, what the heck are you doing? Who is this girl? You were supposed to meet me up in the room 45 minutes ago!!” Now if I thought I was experiencing turbulence, this guy must have had a vision of a mushroom cloud in his head. Needless to say, this was his fiancée. He was in Vegas to marry her. And yet he was 2 minutes from going up and having sex with a random hooker. What a complete and total idiot!! How ridiculous can someone be?? I have thoughts on that, but we’ll save that for another time.

So, the morale of the story is that intelligence level is not something we can just assume from someone’s appearance, occupation, age, or gender. This little hooker in Vegas not only gave me an unbelievably funny story to share with my friends, but she also showed me that you truly can’t judge a book by its cover. Now you could argue she can’t be that intelligent because a smart person would never chose to be a hooker. The truth is we don’t know her story, her situation, or how she has arrived at that point in her life. All I know is she wasn’t a stupid person. She was very clever, very well spoken, and very strategic the way she went about her “business”. And in case you were wondering my friends talked to the friend of the girl with the cherry when I was engaged in conversation with Ms. Cherry and found out they were hookers. Of course, they decided not to tell me and laugh at me from afar as the situation played itself out. Thanks guys!

The New Lemon Law

I have been on plenty of dates with a number of women. All different kinds of girls… smart, not so smart, funny, boring, happy, moody, interesting, attractive, athletic, selfish, cute, and so on…

There have been lots of good times, but also some equally bad times. I can recall some dates that I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I’m not kidding, I could hear the theme song in my head as I looked at some of these girls in the eyes. There are bad dates, which we’ve all been on. I’m not talking about those. I am speaking of dates that you literally couldn’t script to be worse.

When I was 23 I met a girl in a bar, actually a club. I went to Avalon with a group of friends. That was clearly mistake numero uno! This was back in the days when I had literally as much game as Brian Scalabrine. My move you ask? ... crickets chirping... I think the only success I had back then was that a girl thought I was cute, came up to me, we got drinks, hit the dance floor… Well, this happened one night out with some co-workers for a little weekend madness. I was probably a little too drunk, but still managing to stay on my feet, communicate in mostly English, etc… Well, I danced with this girl for like an hour. If you’ve ever been in Avalon it is so loud that you had better know sign language if you want to communicate with anyone. I think one time I was at Avalon and I asked a girl “what’s your name?” and her response was “Bentley College”. I smiled and repeated my question, “no, what’s your name?” and she replied with “You Got It Bad, Usher”. I nodded and walked off. Impossible! Anyways, I was at Avalon with some Filene’s crew and we were about 8 drinks deep. A nice young lady walked up to me, told me I was cute, and dragged me onto the dancefloor. Despite being more wasted than an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day I managed to keep it together. The next thing I know this girl has her tongue jammed deeper down my throat than Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic. About 20 minutes later my friends wanted to leave, so I proceeded to ask this girl for her number. She happily obliged and I went home.

I waited about 3 or 4 days after that Saturday to give her a call. You always wonder if it’s a real number and in this case it was. She picked up the phone and immediately recognized my voice. How, I will never know. It was so loud in there I couldn’t have identified anyone’s voice. Anyways, we chatted for 15 minutes or so about nothing important and then I asked her if she wanted to hang out, get drinks sometime. She said yes. I asked her if Saturday was good. She was cool with that. I was about to suggest a place to go and she jumped in and suggested a day at the beach Saturday because it was supposed to be 85 degrees and sunny. Only a stupid 23 year old would think that is a good suggestion. I would get to see her in a bikini right off the bat. Did I think this was going to be an episode of Baywatch? Seriously! I agreed to the “beach date” and told her I would pick her up at noon. Mistake number two!! I got directions to her place downtown and that was that. I was living in wonderful Brighton at the time… land of getting your car vandalized weekly, 40 person street fights at 2am on a Tuesday, and The Kells. Enough said. At this point I wasn’t super familiar with downtown Boston and getting around, but figured I could manage.

Saturday arrived and I got in a quick gym session. Hey, first impressions are important so I wanted to look my best on the beach. I got my crap together, threw it in the car, and I was off. I arrived on time at 11:55am at her apartment building. I waited a few minutes a door opened and out walked a girl. It didn’t look like the girl I met the previous weekend, but she was walking right towards me. Kind of confusing, no? As she is about 5 feet away she smiles, waves, and says hi to me. Is this really the same girl?? Her face looks nothing like I remembered. Maybe I should’ve told my friends out with me that weekend that I got her number and was planning a date. Mistake number three! I never considered how drunk I must have been. Minor setback, but not a big deal. No reason to still not be excited about this date. I drive off and we are on our way. Inside of ten minutes she has asked me insanely dumb question after another and I am getting annoyed. I am starting to get nervous. I don’t mean a little nervous. I am talking about that feeling those sick losers must get when Chris Hansen walks into the kitchen with his camera crew on “To Catch A Predator”. I had a nice sweat worked up thinking about spending the next 4-5 hours with this crazy girl. This wasn’t drinks where I could duck out in an hour. This was the beach!! I then take a wrong turn getting out of the city and end up heading back into the city by mistake. An easy fix, but do I want to?? She then asks me what my deal is for the summer? I am confused and ask what she means. She then asks, “what I’m in it for?”. Again, I am confused and ask what she is talking about specifically. She replies with “Are you in this for a good lay or what?” I immediately get a vision of one of those old Vegas hotels being blown up from the inside-out reducing it to nothing but rubble. This chick is clearly off the reservation! I am starting to panic. She then points out her place of post-high school education. I say, “Oh the Berkley School of Music”. She literally goes off on me like one of those nut-jobs from Brett Michaels Rock of Love when they are fighting over who has better implants. She is yelling at me, “it’s the Berkley COLLEGE of Music”. That is enough for me to know I need to think quick. I need to summon my inner Jack Bauer and pull of an escape worthy of Houdini or Copperfield (without the creepiness). I see a McDonald’s in the distance. I tell her I need to use the restroom. She goes into a rant about fast food and I continue to smile and ignore her. When inside the McD’s I call my buddy Tom and tell him to call me back in exactly 3 minutes and tell me he is locked out of the apartment. I go back to the car, get back on the road (still in Boston) and in a couple minutes the phone rings. I make sure to put it on speaker phone. You know the rest of that trick and I tell her, “we’re already lost, my roomie is locked out, and I even see clouds rolling in… maybe we take a rain check and do this another time.” She agrees and I drive her back to her apartment. She gets out, tells me to call her later today, and I drive off. Needless to say that was the last we spoke to each other. What a miserable date! As bad of a day as that was there were lessons learned, so not all was lost... plus I got to do some much needed laundry that afternoon since I suddenly didn't have anything pressing to do!!

The follow-up to the story is an idea I heard that suggests the need to implement a dating “Lemon Law”. Lemon laws are American state laws that provide a remedy for purchasers of cars that repeatedly fail to meet standards of quality and performance. In dating the Lemon Law should be that if inside of 15 minutes on a date you realize you have made a horrible mistake and have lined yourself up with a lemon, then you are permitted to get up, stop the date, nicely say good-bye, and walk away without any hard feelings on other side. I don’t think you can tell if you’re with the right person (or the one) in those first 15 minutes, but you most certainly can tell if you are not!! Thanks Barney, this is certainly a different idea that deserves some thought : )

Ways that good old Dad helped build me into a better athlete as a child

The following is a list of some of my fondest memories growing up as a little athlete.

Goal – Not being afraid of the ball when in the batters box in Little League
Action – He put me up against the back of the house and pitched to me… throwing 1 out of every 3 at me, so I’d learn to get out of the way and show me that it doesn’t hurt that bad to get hit! I was literally a human dart board, but instead of darts there were baseballs being thrown at me from close range!

Goal – To make me not afraid of physical confrontations
Action – He decided to play fight with me at my aunt’s house throwing a series of fake punches and kicks at close range… until one knee got through, hit me in the junk and dropped me like a sack of bricks. Apparently he was ahead of his time. Ultimate fighting didn't become popular for another 10-15 years. Although, even in the UFC groin strikes are illegal!

Goal – To make me a better shooter in basketball
Action – He put me in the driveway in 100+ degree heat until I could make 20 consecutive free throws. At one point it even got to the point that once I could do that easily, him and his buddy Chuckie would taunt and yell things at me as I shot the ball! And we wonder why I graduated from high school and weighed all of 120lbs!

Goal – To make me better at dribbling with my left hand
Action – In a game in the driveway he undercut my legs as I went up for a rebound, so I came down sideways and broke my right elbow on the asphalt. I had to do everything, including wiping my ass, with my left hand for 6 weeks. Ok, maybe my dad didn’t do that… it may have been some jerk in Linwood. I do think my dad was a little upset he didn't think of that first : )

And my little sister thought she had it tough growing up in my parent's house... LOL

In all seriousness, my dad is a really nice guy and has been very helpful to me growing up in this crazy world we live in... although his tactics are sometimes a little outside the box!

Looking back : Group trip to the Big Easy

I would say that I am well traveled within the United States of America. Beyond that, my travel desires are far from being fulfilled. There was a group of guys that I am friends with that used to do a yearly trip somewhere. We hit Vegas, Chicago, Seattle, NYC, and one time we went to New Orleans. Thats right we were down on Bourbon Street eating po boys and sucking down hurricanes. I think this was 2002, so we are talking pre-Katrina. I'd say this was at the height of our "we're still young... in denial that we are not in college" phase. It was awesome!

There are a lot of little tricks to really enjoy Mardi Gras that are not known upon arrival. Item #1 is that having beads doesn't get you jack! First off you have to have the right kind of beads. You need to have beads that are cool, different, unique. Secondly, you need to be a master negotiator. You'd be amazed at what people will do for a measley pair of $5 beads if you play your cards right. This little tool learned in New Orleans actually became very beneficial to my career. As an Assistant Buyer working towards becoming an actual Buyer I had been exposed to negotiating. I will liken this experience to a martial arts student that is very good finally achieving his (or her) black belt. By the time we left New Orleans I could comfortably say I had earned my black belt in negotiation!

The second thing to know is don't walk down any side streets or alleys. There are people looking to take advantage of you, rob you, or pick pocket you all over the place. Literally New Orleans is crawling with a ton of Chris Paul's. It is a haven for thieves looking to make the steal every opportunity they see. My advice is to keep all valuables in your front pockets, stay away from alleys, and do what women do at bars when the bathroom fairy comes calling... always travel in numbers. Traveling in packs will help eliminate some seriously sticky situations!

Lastly, take your fully charged cell phone with you in case you get seperated from your group. New Orleans is wild during Mardi Gras. I have never seen so many people packed into one street as when we were attempting to bar hop on Bourbon Street. It is amazing! Once you are seperated from your group, you are out of luck. Let's just say I have a better chance of dating Eva Longoria than you do of re-connecting with you party without the use of a cell phone. So, it was our last night in the Big Easy and we were determined to party to the max. Our group hopped around quite a bit until we found our spot. This bar was crazy. The music was hot... I think they played In Da Club by 50 Cent at least 6 times in a 2 hour span. I know this was THE song of that Spring, but this was a bit over the top. Thats like the Yankees laughing at their yearly $200 million payroll and going out and signing the 3 biggest free agents to contracts totaling more than 1/2 billion dollars... oh wait! Anyways, moving back to the bar... there was a dance off/strip contest on the main stage. To give you a visual the main stage was in the center of the bar. It was elevated about 2 feet higher than the ground level and was in the shape of a circle. It was surrounded by bar patrons on all sides. There was a female contest, which I surely enjoyed. Actually merely saying I enjoyed it was like saying that Amy Winehouse merely enjoys a drug now and again! Then there was a male contest. Our group thought someone from our click had to get up there and give it a go. A couple of guys from our group grabbed our friend Scott, picked him up and literally threw him up on stage against his will. The music started and the ladies crowded he edges of the stage urging the guys on. Let's just say that got Scott into it and before we knew it his shirt was off, he was dancing like Usher on crack, and the ladies were trying to rip his pants off like they were dying from a deadly poison and the antidote was in his boxers. I don't think he ever got that belt back! After a superb showing on stage Scott was feeling the momentum and moved to the main dance floor, walked up to the cutest girl in sight and started dancing. I don't know if it was a full moon or what, but she was totally into him and he took off with her and some of her friends. That is the last the group saw of Scott for the evening.

The next segment is where we thought the story ended, it was just starting. Apparently Scott went barhopping with this super cute blonde girl, her other girl friend and this guy. The drinks were flowing and apparently Scott was on fire. He was dancing with her, making out with her, and having an all around great time. We fast forward a couple hours to about 3am and Bourbon Street was starting to die down a bit. Apparently they walked down to the far end of the street into a bar Scott hadn't been during his week in New Orleans. The four of them did some shots and he started dancing with this girl... lets call her Britney. They moved to the dance floor and started "grinding". Scott eventually looked up and noticed they were the only people in the bar dancing... then he noticed the dance floor was lined with an audience watching them dance... then he noticed they were all guys... where were the girls??... then he noticed many of these men had their hands down the pants of other men as they watched Scott and Britney dance... the alarms went off is Scott's head like a 4 alarm fire!! How could he be so oblivious to his surroundings. Apparently this revlation led to the four set leaving the bar within minutes. One would guess reason would set in and Scott would go back to his hotel... oh no! That would be too easy. The three people Scott was with here locals and they all jumped into a car to ride back to Britney's apartment. The next thing Scott remembers is walking up the steps with the other 3 people to their apartment. The door to the apartment opened and it was like a time machine to the old Greek baths. There was more gay men getting busy in the living room than there are people in Times Square on New Years. It was like he had just walked into some sort of nude gay art show?!? Now keep in mind this was the group's last night in New Orleans. Check out at the hotel was 11am and everyone's flight back north was at 5pm. The next thing Scott remembers was waking up in Britney's bed and the clock on the wall read 11:05am... oops!! Scott then reached into his back pocket for his cell phone and remembered he left it in the hotel. What was he to do??? He woke Britney up and told her that he really needed to get back or he was in big trouble. He says she then got up and took to the bathroom for 20 minutes powdering her nose. While Scott was patiently waiting (probably freaking out on the inside) he noticed pictures of Britney and some young guy all over her desk, on the wall, and on her bookshelves. This girl clearly had a boyfriend. Then he noticed a blue Walmart apron on the floor. Scott just spent the night with a girl that works at Walmart, has a boyfriend that could show up at any time, and lives with a group of guys that throw gay orgies... awesome! That feeling can only be described as like winning the lottery... a lottery that has a grand prize of a giant kick in man's special place. Britney eventually drove Scott back to his hotel, arriving at roughly 12:15pm. He proceeded to ask the front desk if his friends checked out... they did. He asked if they checked his bags... nope. He asked if they left a note for him as to their whereabouts... nope! Immediately panic set in and confusion was right around the corner quickly approaching like a hooker on the Strip in Vegas. Was Scott stuck in New Orleans? Would his friends ditch him like that? After sitting on a couch in the front lobby for 10 minutes that must have felt like hours, another hotel front desk worker came back from a break, saw him on the couch, and asked if he was Scott. His friends left the note with her and she told them they were eating lunch on the roof deck across the street. Scott walked over there (all sweaty, same clothes as the night before, smelling worse than the NYC subways), went up to the roof, where he recieved a round of applause. Not just from our group, but from the entire roof deck thanks to his buddies. All was good in the world again. What lesson did he learn? Always carry your cell phone, but to this day he can't walk into a Walmart without having a flashback that sends his body into moves that we haven't seen since Kevin Bacon in Footloose! Oh the memories we had... thats what life is about. Its not the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away... and I'm guessing he lost his breath a number of times during that little experience! Priceless! LOL